What Secrets
by Ensign Joe
Summary: An ancient conflict draws the crew into a web of intrigue. Don't you love cliches? Please r/r!


The vessels flew in tight formation, their battle-scars and militaristic accoutrements testaments to their intended purpose. These were ships of war. Devastation and ruin were their habitual surroundings; their appearance synonymous with darkness, black, enveloping, suffocating terror. For the first time, however, the weapons had been silenced, the combat tactics disregarded. This new mission was not one of any malicious intent, but one of peace. What once functioned as the vanguard for the Dartu's Elite Armed Fleet was now playing a far more different role. Surrounded and dwarfed by the seven ships was a small craft, its delicate construction and opulent accents making obvious the importance of its occupants.  
  
"Exciting, is it not, m'lady? To be here, now, amidst all this?"  
  
"Shurai, among my more preferred pastimes, serving as my father's diplomatic tool does not rank." Her Most Honorable Highness, the Princess Reiwn cast a bored glance at her governess before returning the same gaze to the stars drifting by the window. The elderly woman seated by her side at first fell into a meditative silence upon being spoken to thus, before her withered features brightened once more  
  
"But just to think, my little bird, of the war, the fighting that has raged since the earliest days of our empire has now ended, and in our lifetimes! The idea that we would be so privileged to take part in—"  
  
"Such rhetoric does not become you, Sh'ai," interrupted Reiwn in a more playful tone, never taking her eyes from the view outside. Her good- natured taunt drew a soft chuckle in response as the shuttle and its makeshift honor guard continued towards their destination.  
  
***  
  
"I don't care what negotiations were made, I still don't trust them." Vries No'io Qi, chief advisor to His Most Honorable Majesty, Emperor Pasilan, sighed and moved to once again reassure his unsettled sovereign.  
  
"Majesty, sending your daughter ahead to the armistice celebrations with a Dartu escort is a wonderful show of trust and friendship and I'm sure that rela-"  
  
"Damnit Vries, I'm not some first-year schoolboy you can lecture politics to. The escort was my idea in the beginning, remember? I know what I have to do. The Dartu have been our enemies for so long, it will just take me a while yet to see them as anything else." The Emperor turned from his political strategist and friend, raising his voice from the hushed whisper he had been speaking with to a half-shout.  
  
"Helmsman!"  
  
"Yes your majesty!"  
  
"You're keeping all of your sensors on the princess's shuttlecraft, correct?"  
  
"Yes, m'lord, at all times."  
  
"Bring the image up on the monitors."  
  
"As you wish, m'lord." A few buttons were pushed and the ship's main screen flickered to reveal the tiny pod, dwarfed by the Dartu battleships hovering nearby. The emperor, in plain anticipation for the end of this journey, settled back in his chair, his eyes focused on the picture in front of him. Vries wandered about the bridge, glancing at the occasional instrument panel with a listless air.  
  
"Your majesty! Advisor Qi!" The young ensign's voice had a strange lilt of panic to it that sent a twinge of alarm through Palisan's body. He stood up from his chair and joined Vries by the crewman's station.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"Something registered on the sensors, m'lord, but I-"  
  
"Get on with it! What did you see?"  
  
"Please, m'lord, it isn't there. I-I mean, it iwas/i there, or something was, but now it...it isn't."  
  
"Explain. I'm not following you."  
  
"Well, m'lord, for a moment there was a fluctuation in the sensor readings, and a fairly large one, too, but now it seems that everything has returned to what it was before."  
  
"Vries, what do you make of this?"  
  
"It's hard to say, your majesty. Obviously we would like to err on the side of caution in this delicate situation, but such an occurrence could very easily be attributed to a mere sensor malfunction. As you can see for yourself on the monitor," he raised his hand up towards the device, "the princess's craft appears to be in perfect condition, no anomalies here." He and the emperor both looked up at the screen, just in time to see that same craft destroyed in a violent explosion.  
  
***  
  
"But your majesty, if I could just persuade you to reconsider...we are at a very delicate point in our relation with the Dartu...another war could be devastating to the empire..."  
  
"Spare me your diplomatic anxieties, Vries. Those dogs have taken the life of my daughter. They have betrayed my trust, old friend, they have made a mockery of me and there will be no peace until I have wiped this universe clean of their existence. 


End file.
